The invention relates to the field of computers programs and systems, and more specifically to the field of designing of an assembly of object in a Computer-Aided Design application.
Computer-aided techniques are known to include Computer-Aided Design or CAD, which relates to software solutions for authoring product design. Similarly, CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM stands for Computer-Aided Manufacturing and typically includes software solutions for defining manufacturing processes and operations.
A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for the design of objects (or parts) or assemblies of objects, forming a product, such as the one provided by Dassault Systèmes under the trademark CATIA. These CAD systems allow a user to construct and manipulate complex three dimensional or 3D models of objects or assemblies of objects. CAD systems thus provide a representation of modeled objects using edges or lines, in certain cases with faces. Lines or edges may be represented in various manners, e.g. non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS). These CAD systems manage parts or assemblies of parts as modeled objects, which are mostly specifications of geometry. Specifically, CAD files contain specifications, from which geometry is generated, which in turn allow for a representation to be generated. Geometry and representation may be stored in a single CAD file or multiple ones. CAD systems include graphic tools for representing the modeled objects to the designers; these tools are dedicated to the display of complex objects; the typical size of a file representing an object in a CAD system being in the range of one Megabyte per part, and an assembly may comprise thousands of parts. A CAD system manages models of objects, which are stored in electronic files.
In computer-aided techniques, the graphical user interface GUI plays an important role as regards the efficiency of the technique. Most of the operations required for manipulating and/or navigating the modeled objects may be performed by the user (e.g. the designers) on the GUI. Especially, the user may create, modify, and delete the modeled objects forming the product, and also explore the product so as to comprehend how modeled objects are interrelated, e.g. via a product structure. Traditionally, these operations are carried out through dedicated menus and icons which are located on the sides of the GUI. Recently, CAD systems such as CATIA allow calling these operations nearby the representation of the product. The designer does not need anymore to move the mouse towards menus and icons. Operations are thus available within reach of the mouse. In addition, the operations behave semantically: for a given operation selected by the designer, the CAD system may suggest to the designer, still nearby the mouse, a set of new operations according to the former selected operation that the designer is likely to select.
Until recent years, some computer software used, for example in automotive and aerospace industry, are based on geometry, for mechanical engineers to be able to see their work in space or in a three-dimensional displaying.
In this domain, computer software like CATIA, SolidWorks, NX, and ProEngineer allow design geometry in a three dimension space, like respectively shown on FIGS. 1, 2, 3 and 4. On these Figures, the exemplified graphical user interfaces or GUI are typical CAD-like interfaces with standard menu bars. Such menu and toolbars contain a set of user-selectable icons, each icon being associated with one or more operations or functions. Some of these icons are associated with software tools, adapted for editing and/or working on a 3D geometrical modeled product or parts of product such as that displayed in the graphical user interfaces GUI. In the following description, terms “product”, “part”, “assembly” and the like may be referred to as “part” for the sake of simplicity. The concept of “part” can also be generalized to that of “object”. An object encompasses any constituent of the final digital mock-up, for instance, considering an assembly, an object of this assembly can be a sub-assembly, a part, a kinematic joint, a material, the embedded software executed on an Electronic Control Unit (ECU), or any object needed to describe the entire environment of the assembly, like the modeling of the atmosphere in the case you want to study an airplane flying capacities.
It is still possible to use computer software like Matlab Simulink, Dymola, and Simulation X, which provide a rich two-dimensional displaying environment to design a logical system from logical components, like respectively shown on FIGS. 5, 6 and 7. On these Figures, the exemplified graphical user interfaces or GUI have standard menu bars. Such menu and toolbars contain a set of user-selectable icons, each icon being associated with one or more operations or functions. Some of these icons are associated with software tools, adapted for editing and/or working on a logical modeled product or parts of product such as that displayed in the graphical user interfaces GUI.
In CATIA system, a set of tools provides an environment allowing to view and design in the same editor 80, i.e. on the same screen displaying, a three-dimensional geometrical representation 81 and separately a logical representation 82.
Such displaying of the separate three-dimensional geometrical and logical representations is shown on FIG. 8.
With these kind of systems, understanding how a product or assembly of objects works is really difficult, particularly when the products becomes more and more complex, since it is difficult for a user to see how the mechanical parts interact with the system components, and what information is exchanged between geometrical representation and logical representation.
Thus, there is no link between the used geometrical representation and logical representation.